Epilogue

Epilogue

Bulldog

Six Months Later

“W hat is the matter with you?” I ask Kate for the third time tonight.

She keeps flipping through the channels and mutters, “Nothing.”

I don’t take my eyes off her, though. I know there’s something going on with her. The last six months have been the best of my life. Every possible minute we’ve spent together.

“Come here,” I tell her, pulling her into my lap.

She comes willingly, but her mood doesn’t seem to lighten any. Emma is in her room for the night and so it’s just us now.

She curls up in my lap, and I try to get her to look at me. “Talk to me. I know something’s bothering you.”

Her lower lip comes out in a pout. “Are you going to stay the night?”

I shake my head. “You know I don’t feel right doing that, not with Emma here. We don’t want her to get the wrong idea about how things work.”

Normally, she agrees with me, but tonight, she just turns back to the television. Which is a tell anyway because she never watches television. “All right.”

I take the remote from her hand and flip it off before tossing it to the chair across from us. I position Kate to where she has to look at me and demand, “Talk to me. Do you want me to leave? Is that what this is about?”

“No!” She leans into me. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay. I want to wake up in the morning with you next to me. I’m tired of this and I know, I know, I’m the one that started the rule about no sleepovers when Emma’s home, but I mean let’s face it. She loves you. She knows we’re together. I just don’t understand why you don’t want to be with me.”

“Don’t want to be with you?” I take a deep breath and let it out. Our worlds have changed so much in the last six months. I took a job at the hardware store and am already managing the place. Kate was fed up with the uptight way things were happening at her office, and so she started her own accounting firm, which is doing great, and she’s been super busy. So much has changed… except how I feel about her. If nothing else, I love her more than I ever dreamed possible. “Do you really think I don’t want to be with you?”

She shrugs her shoulders. I know she knows how I feel about her. She’s just being stubborn. I’ve been leading up to this for so long, carrying what I need in my saddle bag on my bike, because I know exactly what I want. I’ve been waiting for her to be sure.

I set her away from me and she looks at me curiously, but she still doesn’t say anything. “I’ll be right back.”

I walk out to my bike and unlatch my saddlebag. Even though I’m sure she’s going to say yes, I am still nervous.

When I walk into the door, she’s sitting in the same spot. I walk over to her, holding her gift behind me. I bring it out and lay it on her lap. “I had this made for you.”

She unfolds the black leather and holds it up. I turn it around for her and on the back it says, “Property of Bulldog.”

“You got me matching jackets like Roxy and Cat?” she asks, surprised.

“Cuts. They’re called cuts,” I tell her.

She smiles and rubs her finger over the letters of my name. I know she’s happy, but her smile still isn’t reaching her face. “I love it. Thank you, Bulldog.”

“You’re not going to tell me how you’re not my property or any other mumbo jumbo?”

She smiles wistfully. “I probably should, but no I’m not. I like being yours.”

And that right there calms all my nerves.

She leans in to kiss me, but I pull back. “There’s something else.”

Her eyes snap to mine, but I can tell she’s holding back. Fuck, I hope she says yes.

I pull the little box from my pocket and drop to one knee in front of her.

She gasps, her hands covering her mouth. I know she’s surprised, but I fuckin’ hope it’s a good one.

I put my hands on her thighs because in order to do this, I have to be touching her. I have to have my hands on her. “I love you, Kate. You know I do. I love everything about you. I’ve never had a family, besides the Heartlands. But everything I feel when I’m with you tells me that I want to be a part of your family. I want to wake up next to you every morning and hold you in my arms at night. I want to be there for you and for Emma. I want to laugh with you, cry with you, fuck, baby, I want to do it all with you. You make me want to be a better man, and you would make me the happiest man on the planet if you would do me the honor of becoming my wife. Will you marry me, Kate?”

With tears rolling down her face, she nods her head. “Yes, oh yes. I love you, Bull. I want all of that, everything with you.”

I take the ring out and put it on her finger, and it fits perfectly. She looks at it for the briefest moment and then she’s in my arms, knocking me backwards to the floor with her arms around me. We’re both laughing, unable to contain the high that we’re both on right now.

“What’s all the commotion?” Emma calls from the doorway.

Kate looks at her hand and then back to Emma, and I can tell she’s searching for the right words. “Emma…”

“Did you say yes?” she asks her mom, and then turns to me. “Did she say yes?”

I nod my head at her.

“See, I told you she would say yes.”

“Wait.” Kate looks between Emma and me and then back to Emma. “You knew about this?”

Emma puts her hand on her hip. “Duh, he asked my permission last week, Mom. He wanted to make sure I was okay with it.”

Kate smiles. “So I guess you were okay with it?”

Emma just laughs. “Yep, I agreed, as long as I could call him Pops.”

“Pops!” Kate exclaims.

“Yeah,” I admit. “Emma seems to think Pops is a good name for me. But I don’t care. She can call me whatever. As long as I have the both of you in my life, you can even call me Oliver.”

Emma starts to laugh, and when she sees that I am serious, she stops. “Wait, Oliver? Your real name is Oliver?” She starts cracking up, holding her sides from laughing so hard.

“Har, har, Emma. Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I ask her.

She turns to go, but gives us one last laugh. “Yeah, goodnight, Oliver. I mean Pops. I love you, Mom. Love you, Pops.”

We can still hear her laughing as she goes down the hall, but I’m looking at the spot she just left.

Kate notices and touches my chin, to have me look at her. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, but she just said she loved me.”

Now it’s Kate’s turn to give me that “duh” look. “Of course she loves you. You’ve been here for her more in the past six months than her dad has in a lifetime. She loves you, Bull. I love you too.”

I wipe at my eyes. Not because I’m crying or anything, but because my eyes are watering. “I love you both.”

She settles back onto my lap. “I know you do.”